Abstract
The development of the Indian theatre is primarily divided in two parts, the classic period and the modern period. The classic time is known up to 1000 A.D. Emergence of modern theatre can be calculated from the eighteenth century with the arrival of East India Company who introduced the Elizabethan and Victorian theatre. The British had significant influence in Indian theatre. In the 1850s a small community of great Parsi actors and actresses started acting Shakespearean plays in India. The dances and the songs became so popular that they began to perform the same act in Hindi, Gujarati and Urdu. Parsi theatre played a great role in the modernization of Indian theatre with their effective interference in the freedom struggle of the country. This paper readdresses the genesis of the modernity of classical Indian theatre, later on documented in Natyashastra with its sociohistorical connotations as well as strong communication theory and its system. Paper also addresses the modern outlook of the theatre re-emerged during the colonial and postcolonial period.
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Notes
- 1.
The issue of the crossing over of various disciplines in the theatre is also closely related to the social structure of Indian society since ancient times. Unlike other parts of the world, Indian society was specifically divided into four levels, which developed later on into the caste system. At the uppermost level were the Brahmins, who were responsible for performing religious rituals and imparting knowledge. By virtue of their higher level, they were considered the most respected class. Lower down were Kshatriyas, whose task was to protect the people and the land. This was, in fact, the ruling class, which produced the kings and warriors. The third level was occupied by the Vaishyas, who owned trade and commerce. This was a rich class of business people who exerted considerable pressure on the state because of their powerful financial status. At the lowest level was the working class, called the Shudras, to which the majority of the population belonged. This was the most deprived sector of society for whose members the recitation of the sacred books (and thus study) was out of reach. The need for a new stream of education was strongly felt, whose goal was to rectify the social imbalance; and this new stream appeared in the form of theatre. In order to make it equal to existing streams of knowledge, the art of the theatre was termed nātyaveda the fifth Veda , a synthesis of knowledge comprising the elements of all the existing books, as well as the art forms. In fact, this will not be wrong to say that this synthesis of various knowledge was an approach with a modern outlook to educate the society while working simultaneously. The first chapter of Nātyashāstra provides sufficient evidence to prove the bold and modern outlook by rejecting the social hierarchy of the upper cast population.
- 2.
The Nātyashāstra (whose literal meaning is “the science of theatre”) describes the origin of nātya in the first chapter. Lord Brahma created the nātyaveda for the benefit of all the varnas (social levels), since the Shudras could not be instructed in Veda. The four constituents of this fifth Veda were adapted from the four earlier Vedas, namely, Recitation from the Rgveda, Song from the Saāmveda, Histrionics ( Abhinaya) from the Yajurveda and Sentiment (Rasa) from the Atharvaveda. The Upvedas were also connected with it. Where the recitation and song adapted from the Rgveda and the Sāmveda are concerned, it suffices to say here that the contents of the Rigveda were recited in a very simple oratorical manner and the musical pattern of the contents of the Sāmveda was maintained. As for the adoption of the histrionics and the sentiments from the Yajurveda and the Atharvaveda, respectively, let us note that the priest carrying out the sacrificial ritual of the Yajurveda had a number of actions to fulfill; the mental state required of the priest by the various rituals of the Atharvaveda was produced by his having the appropriate dress. Where the Upvedas are concerned, evidence has suggested that the Ayurveda was placed in the Nātyashāstra, primarily for the purposes of the treatment of the Vyabhichaāri Bhāvas. Certain diseases and their symptoms were taken to be characteristic of certain mental states on the line of Charaka and Sushruta. The contents of the Dhanurveda were used in the representation of fights. The Gandharvaveda was used in the preliminaries (Purvaranga) to performance and in the actual performance in the form of Dhruvaā songs and an accompaniment to various movements. The Sthāpatyaveda was necessary for the construction of the theatre space. An examination of these texts reveals that, in each case, the particular Veda identifies a principal genre or form and then invariably considers the role of the other arts in the structure in relation to the principal one. Thus an integral vision grows out of multiplicity and could be described as an integral multidisciplinary approach.
- 3.
Nātyashāstra.
- 4.
Asuras (lower cast people of the society, identified as bad people with demonic tendencies).
- 5.
NS, Ch I [64–65].
- 6.
NS, Ch. 1: 103–104. Here the words Devas and Asuras are used for the upper and lower class of the society.
- 7.
NS, Ch. 1: 105–7.
- 8.
NS, Ch.1:113–26.
- 9.
NS, Ch.1:117–19 (ancient names of the seven continents are referred to as Jambu, Plaksa, Salmali, Kusa, Kraunca, Saka and Puskara, identified, respectively, with the regions of Asia, South America, Australia, Oceania, Africa, Europe and North America by some modern writers.)
- 10.
NS, Ch.23: 49.
- 11.
NS, Ch.23: 64–72.
- 12.
NS, Ch.8: 5–10.
- 13.
Phillips, C.H. (Ed.); The Correspondence of Lord William Bentinck, Vol. II, p. 793.
- 14.
Cesaire, Dine; Discourse sur le Colonialismel [taken from Black Skin, White Masks by Franz Fanon] Grove Press, New York, 1967, p. 7.
- 15.
Parsi or Parsee refers to a member of the larger of the two Persian Zoroastrian communities in South Asia, the other being the Iranian community. According to tradition, the present-day Parsis descend from a group of Persian Zoroastrians who immigrated to India during the tenth century AD due to persecution by Muslims in Greater Persia. The long presence in the region distinguishes the Parsis from the Iranians who are more recent arrivals and who represent the smaller of the two Indian-Zoroastrian communities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism
- 16.
Mazoui, Ali M.; Cultural Focus in World Politics, 1990, p. 6.
- 17.
Das Gupta, Hemendra Nath; The Indian Stage Vol. II/III, 1946, pp. 256–7.
- 18.
Metcalf, Thomas R.; Ideologies of the Raj , 1998, p.44.
- 19.
Tinker, Hugh; A New System of Slavery, 1974, p. 184.
- 20.
Ibid, The Indian Stage Vol. II/III, 1946, p. 92.
- 21.
Sinh, Ranbir: Identity Crisis in Multicultural Society (chapter in Ethnicity and Identity: Global Performance, ed. Ravi Chaturvdi), Rawat Publication, Jaipur, 2005, p. 355.
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CHATURVEDI, R. (2019). Modernization Re(ad)dressed in Indian Theatre. In: Nagata, Y., Chaturvedi, R. (eds) Modernization of Asian Theatres. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6046-6_8
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